PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSES MADE BY THE AGECAT SYSTEM IN RESIDENTS OF LOCAL-AUTHORITY HOMES FOR THE ELDERLY - OUTCOME AND DIAGNOSTIC STABILITY AFTER 4 YEARS

Eighty-six residents of 12 local authority homes for the elderly were interviewed with the Geriatric Mental State (GMS) in 1985/6 after having been classed as depressed by a screening interview. The data so gathered were analysed by the computerized diagnostic program AGECAT in order to derive psychiatric diagnoses for these residents. All were traced after four years; 61 were dead. The 25 survivors were reinterviewed and given a second AGECAT diagnosis. In 1985/6 70 of the 86 examined were 'diagnostic cases' of psychiatric disorder. After four years 22 of the 25 survivors were classed as diagnostic cases. AGECAT diagnoses of organic psychosis were stable over four years within this population though the majority of subjects so diagnosed died within four years. Cases of depression had a more varied prognosis, with death, continuance as cases of depression or progression to organic psychosis being the most common outcomes. Recovery from any class of AGECAT disorder was an uncommon event.